Listen
by Insideimfeelindirty
Summary: Set at the end of 12 x 08. Jackson's POV. She has no idea that the I love you doesn't come before the but; it comes after.


She was always a runner. One for avoiding the difficult conversations, happier to ignore than to confront, at least where he's concerned. Right from their tentative beginnings she's done a song and dance around him whenever things got tough, leaving him scrambling trying to get through to her, pulling the words out of her when they wouldn't come willingly. Lately their roles have been reversed, him trying to avoid the conversations he knows will only lead him down the path to hurting her, her throwing herself desperately and blindly into them. But during the last week, they have been so out of balance that he finds himself reconsidering everything he thought he knew, reevaluating every foregone conclusion.

He follows her out of the hospital doors, determined to face her, but she refuses to slow down, refuses to acknowledge him, refuses to look at him. He has to shout her name, to rush after her to get her to pause for a second. When she finally turns she is impatient, annoyed, maybe even a little angry at him. She uses the one excuse he can't accept, because he's had the same exact long day as her, and he still wants to, no, _needs_ _to_ have this conversation.

"We had sex."

There it is, the thing that has been hanging between them and growing into the cracks, tearing them apart a little further.

She can barely look at him as she spits the words out, her eyes filled with, for the first time, _regret_. It's a tough pill for him to swallow. Never in the years since that night in San Fransisco has he seen that look on her face, not the morning after the very first time, not when she called him a car crash and worse, not once has she looked at him like he's a mistake she made. He swallows hard, waiting for her to follow up, to say something to clear up the fog that has invaded his brain ever since her hand brushed against his arm three days ago. But she doesn't say anything more, challenging him to fill the silence between them like he's the only interested party in this conversation.

"We had sex," he confirms, starting with the simple facts and the inescapable mechanics of what happened after her hand brushed against his arm and the whole atmosphere in the room changed.

"And that was confusing."

As soon as his words leave his mouth, he knows they are the wrong ones, because at the exact same time she finishes his sentence with a whole other word and her face falls. He begins to backtrack, tries to agree that yes, it was amazing too, but she's not having any of it, the anger is back in her voice, shutting him up.

It had been amazing, she reminds him, it had felt like second nature, their bodies moving in synch as always. It had felt good, it had felt like them, the familiarity of being in the place where they were never at odds with one another giving him some much needed release. It had been amazing, but it had also been confusing.

Before that night, before her hand brushed against his arm, he had been decided. There had been nothing left to save, nothing worth fighting for. Divorce had been the only logical path forward; he'd given her an ultimatum and she had forced his hand when she left. He'd spent the months she was gone putting himself back together, coming to terms with losing his best friend, his wife and his lover, and grappling with the fact that he might never be able to properly grieve the loss of his son. Before that night, he'd had all the answers.

"I saw it on your face." Her anger has drained from her voice, eyes now glistening with moisture and exasperation drawing deep lines into her forehead.

"This was goodbye."

Her voice cracks as she delivers her blow, a blow intended for herself but one that reaches far beyond, like a punch to his gut. Callie's words from earlier flash into his mind, and he knows instantly that April is wrong. It wasn't goodbye. All the feelings and all the history between them was there, it was all hanging between them, the significance of their past adding weight to their present. But he didn't feel like it was the last time, he didn't feel like he was taking her all in before holding his breath and going under water. On the contrary, it felt like coming up for air, like stepping into the light, except he didn't know he had stopped breathing, and he had thought he had already left the darkness behind.

"I want to end where we began."

He never stopped loving her, not for a moment. Even through all her crazy, even on his loneliest nights when he hated her for leaving, he still loved her. She had done a hundred and one things he didn't like, but he loved her for every one of them regardless. Looking at her now, bottom lip trembling and tears threatening to spill over, he is floored. He wants to reach out and stop her, reassure her and enlighten her, but she doesn't stop talking. She keeps rambling, not giving him a chance to interject, spiralling into her own heartbreak.

"Anything you say is going to ruin it."

It makes his blood boil the way she jumps to conclusions about his feelings. He has them, he has a lot of them, but she is determined to always assume the worst. It hadn't been break up sex, but it hadn't been make up sex either. All is not forgiven, his troubles are not gone, and he has no idea where to go from here.

Before he knows it they are in the middle of a shouting match, his adrenaline pumping, his ears growing hot as he lets his mouth run off with thoughts that have been simmering and festering under the surface for months. No one has ever made him angrier than her, no one can frustrate him and infuriate him more, no one can devastate him like she can.

"I know what you're gonna say. You're gonna say you love me - _but_ …"

She thinks she has him all figured out, she thinks that night three nights ago is what solidified his decision. She doesn't know, she has no clue. She is oblivious to the fact that since that night, everything he thought he knew turned out to be wrong. She is blind to the fact that his confusion doesn't stem from suddenly considering divorce seriously, but from suddenly not considering it at all. She has no idea that the _I love you_ doesn't come before the _but_ ; it comes after.

"God, Jackson, just say it!"

He swallows hard, waits for her to calm down, waits for his own pulse to slow down, heart thumping loudly in his chest.

"You drive me crazy April, you always have. You ignored me, you pushed me aside and you refuse to listen to me. Sometimes, being with you hurts more than I can take."

Finally she is calm, finally she is listening, finally she sees him. Her eyes are wide and wet, her bottom lip trembling slightly. Her red curls hang loose around her face, and her breath is shallow. She looks at him like she did in that barn, when she was standing before an altar with a man that wasn't him.

"If I could live without you, maybe I'd know some kind of peace. _But…_ "

She inhales sharply, lets her shoulders sink back and moves a step closer to him.

" _But..?_ "


End file.
